Jacksons MMA Series X goes down tonight

Duke City gonna Duke City

A passerby who happened to be wandering through the Hotel Albuquerque ballroom yesterday would have noticed the weigh-ins for tonight’s Jackson’s MMA Series (JMMAS) fight card. To his or her untrained eye, it was a bunch of dudes taking turns weighing themselves in their Underoos. If the passerby happened to miss the occasional brief moment when the fighters tensed their muscles and raised their fists at each other, the mood in the room may have been more suggestive of a needlepoint contest. There was handshaking, hugging, back patting and giggling—yes giggling—as the fighters squared off and tried to look menacing in each other’s faces.

These gentlemen are looking forward to punching one another, and who are we to stop them? They are fighters. This is a fight town. And everyone is so gleeful because they know that as soon as this formality is over they can finally eat again, and rehydrate their shrunken bodies.

The card goes down tonight at JMMAS’ new home in Tingley Coliseum at Expo New Mexico at the fairgrounds. I wrote about it more yesterday, and everything I said remains true, except that Nick Urso’s opponent, who we won’t bother naming at this point, showed up two weight classes above the 135lb bantamweight limit, and that scrap was scrapped.

Taking its place in the coveted "co-main event" category is a fight between stocky and clean cut Manuel Cespedes and the skinny, hippy-dread-headed Mike Justus of Jackson’s MMA. They say that style-matches make fights. So do matches of body types. Will the tall guy use his massive reach advantage to pick apart Cespedes on the feet, or submit him in a tangle of limbs? Or will he fold like a lawn chair when he feels the Cuban's power?